


Foolish Fire

by shiphitsthefan



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Agender Kevin, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Artist Jo, Carpenter Jo, Complicated Furniture, Dom/sub Undertones, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, F/F, Falling In Love, Fluff, Gaming, Humor, Nerdiness, Pop Culture, Puzzlemaker Jo, Puzzles, Recreational Drug Use, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 20:04:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5177912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiphitsthefan/pseuds/shiphitsthefan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Did you know,” Jo starts as she picks up some currently unidentifiable cordless power tool, “that the term ‘jack-o’-lantern’ used to be interchangeable with the phrase ‘will-o’-the-wisp’?  They are both used as descriptions for a natural phenomena known as <i>ignis fatuus,”</i> Jo continues as she puts the power tool back down and digs around in her shirt pocket for a lighter instead.</p><p>“For a Hogwarts junkie, my Latin is atrocious,” Charlie admits.</p><p>Jo smiles.  “My parents were big into the supernatural.  I only picked up bits and pieces from old occultist books.”</p><p>“So what does it mean?”</p><p>“It means ‘foolish fire’.”  She plucks a half-smoked joint out from behind her ear, puts it to her lips, and slowly lights it.</p><p>***</p><p>Charlie Bradbury has a huge crush on her new neighbor, Jo Harvelle.  She's ridiculously hot, insanely talented, and effortlessly cool, a puzzle that Charlie longs to solve.  Jo, on the other hand, has an entirely different set of clues she hopes Charlie will find a solution for.  Piece by piece, they come together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foolish Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the [October edition](http://spnwritingchallenge.tumblr.com/post/129245465699/welcome-to-the-october-edition-of-the-supernatural) of the [Supernatural Writing Challenge](http://spnwritingchallenge.tumblr.com/). My prompt was "jack-o'-lantern".
> 
> All of my thanks to my One True Beta, [betty days](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sadrobots/pseuds/betty%20days), who flails in my margins, fills in the missing pieces, and allowed her house to be shamelessly stolen as setting.
> 
> Please do not repost/copy/duplicate this work to other sites. That's called theft.

The new kid on the block isn’t a kid, not by any stretch of the imagination, but she’s a plaid-grunge princess if ever there was.  She wears combat boots and jeans with more patches than denim.  Her muscle tanks are tight and black, probably from the boy’s section.  Her overshirts are always flannel, no matter the weather, and her blonde hair is perpetually in a lazy bun, more of a folded up ponytail than anything else.

She sits on the ledge of the big front porch of her turn-of-the-last-century fixer-upper, left leg dangling over, right leg propped up.  Her knee is her armrest as she slowly smokes—hand-rolled cigarettes, not that Charlie’s been watching her roll them from her front porch swing or anything—

“Dude,” Kevin says disdainfully, interrupting Charlie’s wistful rambling, “they’re joints, okay?  I walk past her house every morning on my way to practice, and she wakes and bakes like a _pro._  Either that or she’s got a very persistent pet skunk.”

“She’s an artist, Kev.  It comes with the package.  It’s like a pre-order bonus DLC.”

Kevin snorts.  “More like bonus THC.”

—because not-a-kid who lives in the piece of genuine Americana across the street is definitely an artist.  She has a shed full of carpentry tools and dangerous machinery; she’s in her workshop daily, safety goggles firmly in place, ever-present flannel wrapped around her waist, her well-defined arms bare save for the full sleeves of tattoos.  Charlie has no idea what she’s making—

“Hannibal had a table saw,” Kevin reminds her over morning coffee and day-past-stale donuts.

“Hannibal didn’t carve up people with the door wide open, Kevin.”

“No,” they say, tossing their donut back into the box in disgust, “he just invited people over for dinner afterward.”

Charlie sighs and pokes her neglected donut.  “She hasn’t said two words to anyone since she moved in, let alone thrown a dinner party.”

Kevin gives her their best that’s my point face.  “I’d tell _you_ to go talk to _her_ if she didn’t scream serial killer.”

“You’re so hateful.”

“Somebody’s got to be the Grumpy Cat to your Little Miss Sunshine,” Kevin says with a haughty look.

—Regardless, Charlie’s princess isn’t in another castle.  No, she’s right across the street, which feels a little too much like _Frogger_ for Charlie’s liking.  Instead, Charlie stretches out in her own front porch swing, pretending to read while she glances longingly across two lanes, and wonders when her life became a slow burn dating sim.

* * *

“This is ridiculous.”

Charlie looks up from her sentry spot on the porch where she’s been reading the same page of _The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl_ for thirty minutes.  “What?” she asks, intending to sound innocent, but instead sounding like...well.  A squirrel, and one that’s been caught coveting another tree’s acorns, to boot.

Kevin fiddles with their barrette, trying to pin back their hair.  “The _Rear Window_ treatment,” they elaborate around the other clip they’re holding between their teeth.  “It’s getting borderline creepy.”

“Um.”  Charlie scrambles for a change of topic.  “Is that new eyeshadow?” she finally manages, a bit less squirrelly.

“Yeah, you like?”

“Matches your shirt.  Goes well with the earrings, which, um, _yes,”_ Charlie says.  “Gold’s a good look on you.  And it’s festive!”

“Festive?”

“Autumnal.  Seasonal.  Whatever.”

“I wasn’t really sold on the sh—Hey, no, we’re having this conversation,” they say, pulling Charlie’s legs out of the swing and plopping down next to her.

“What conversation?” asks Charlie with a hopeful smile.

“The one about your increasingly intense crush.”

Charlie sighs.  “It’s not going to go anywhere.  I’m so done with dating after Dorothy.  Like, Smaug torches Lake-town levels of burnt out.”

Kevin rolls their eyes and uses Charlie’s lap as a footrest, narrowly avoiding her issue of _Squirrel Girl._  “Look, just because you escaped from the destructive relationship that was Cyclone Dorothy doesn’t mean you should just give up.”

“But it involves talking to new people!  And, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I am double-plus-ungood at that.”

“Okay,” Kevin concedes, “but the Samwise to your Frodo is actually more reclusive than you are.  I think she ventures out in that black monstrosity of a pick-up truck maybe once a week.”

“I’m not reclusive!” insists Charlie.  “I already have enough friends through LARP and _The Game_ and everyone I work with is a total mouth-breather.  Besides,” she continues, “Sam/Frodo is so last trilogy.  Bagginshield is the new black.”

“Ugh, whatever, you know I don’t fanfic.”

Charlie very maturely sticks her tongue out at them.

“You need to suck it up and go say hello,” Kevin says.

“I don’t even know if she swings her sword with my army.”

Kevin blinks.  “That’s the dumbest nerd-alogy I have ever heard pop out of your mouth.”

“Still!  Point goes to Gryffindor.”

“Point goes to _Ravenclaw,”_ Kevin says, pointing to themself, “because I have eyes, and if she’s not butch then I will eat my viola.”

“Stereotypes, Kev,” says Charlie with a frown.

“Eyesight, Charlie,” Kevin deadpans.

Charlie frowns harder and starts fiddling with the ribbon laces on Kevin’s Chuck Taylors.  “I still wouldn’t know what to say.”

“Make her a pie and play welcome wagon.”

“What if she doesn’t like pie?” Charlie asks, biting her thumbnail.  “Or worse, what if she’s gluten intolerant and I make her sick?”

“Well,” Kevin starts pulling their legs back and swinging themself up, “I know a great way to find out.  C’mon, padawan,” they say, grabbing Charlie’s arm and practically yanking her out of her seat.  “Time to infiltrate the enemy base.”

“What, now?  Aren’t you meeting Channing downtown?”

“Yeah, but I can’t put up with this nonsense anymore,” Kevin says as they drag Charlie down the steps.  “It’s like watching Mary and Matthew Crawley dance around each other for years, except worse, because you two haven’t even talked.”

Charlie snorts.  “Does that make you the Dowager Countess?”

“Someone’s got to keep this family in line.”

“Although,” Charlie remembers as Kevin begins to pull her across the street like a reluctant, rusty red wagon, “that romance didn’t end particularly well.”

“So don’t go speeding down country lanes after she has your baby,” Kevin says.  “Problem solved.”

“I really should have grabbed my sweater—oh God, what am I even wearing?”  Charlie comes to an abrupt halt in the middle of the road and looks down at her clothes.  Her eyes widen.  “Nope.  Nope, mission aborted.  Failure to launch.  Houston, we have a problem.”

Charlie can feel Kevin roll their eyes.  “You look fine.  I mean, you’re wearing your ‘Gaming’s Feminist Illuminati’ tee.  How can you go wrong?”

“I’m also wearing _My Little Pony_ pajama pants and Monty Python killer rabbit slippers!” Charlie hisses.

“Charlie, she lives across the street from us, and the back of your hideous yellow car is essentially a billboard for geekdom, okay?   _She knows.”_

“But my hair—”

“Is adorable,” Kevin says, turning around on their heel to look at her.  “You are annoyingly cute, as always.  Shut up.”

Charlie narrows her eyes, but lets Kevin lead her onward.  Every step she takes across the uneven pavement makes her more and more self-conscious, because hot neighbor is _hot._  Charlie knows she’s attractive enough—she’s been hit on by enough PUG dudebros on _The Game_ to know that—but she screams geek in a hundred-yard radius.  There are three kinds of girls who date chicks like Charlie—girls exactly like her, which is nice but ultimately boring and always results in either one-night stands or more Steam Christmas sale gift friends; girls who play first-person shooters, who are always intense and intimidating and ultimately heartbreakers; and girls who want to date a nerd because _The Big Bang Theory_ made them think it was cool.

Girls like hot neighbor are light years out of Charlie’s league.  She’s effortlessly bohemian, practically radiating natural, unintentional cool.  Charlie wants to be in her orbit, but the _Millennium Awkward_ absolutely couldn’t make the Kessel Run in twelve- _hundred_ parsecs, let alone twelve.

“Well hey there, neighbors,” Charlie’s crush greets from the porch with a half wave, half salute.  She doesn’t bother moving from her position, but her smile is friendly enough to compensate for any lack of manners.  It reaches her brown eyes, peering directly at Charlie, which makes Charlie’s legs feel wibbly-wobbly.  “Never thought y’all would ford the pavement river and say hello.”

“Our oxen died of dysentery,” immediately pops out of Charlie’s mouth.   _Arcane video game reference.  Yeah, Charlie.  Great first impression._

But she unexpectedly and unashamedly snorts.  “Used to play the hell out of that,” she says before lifting the joint paper to her mouth and wetting it with the tip of her tongue.

Charlie refuses to stare. Refuses.

“I used the source code to make a version for the Battle of Hogwarts,” Charlie elaborates instead, because she can’t shut up to save her soul.  Kevin is literally face-palming beside her, and Charlie doesn’t blame them one bit.

Hot neighbor pauses and swings her other leg over the edge of the railing.  She tilts her head and tucks the joint behind her ear before pushing herself off the ledge with her hands, landing neatly in front of Charlie.  “Name’s Jo,” she says as she rises, dusting herself off.  “Harvelle,” she adds, offering her hand to Charlie.

“Hi,” Charlie says meekly as she shakes Jo’s hand.

Jo just keeps smiling.  “Nice to finally meet you, Hermione.”

“Don’t let her fool you,” Kevin says.  “She’s more of a Luna.”

“Nah,” replies Jo.  “Takes guts to come across the street and say hello.  Or maybe motivation?”

“Oh!  Um, right.  We wondered if you liked pie.”  Charlie blinks.  “Though I suppose it might be prudent to make introductions first.”

“Yeah, don’t usually take pie from strangers.”

Charlie stands there dumbly long enough for Kevin to sigh wearily and take over.  “I’m Kevin Tran.  This is Charlie Bradbury.  We came over to finally welcome you to the neighborhood.”

“And offer me pie,” Jo notes.

“And offer you pie.  Charlie wasn’t ever going to stop staring at you from the porch otherwise.”

 _“Kev!”_ hisses Charlie.

Jo laughs.  “No worries, Hermione.  You aren’t real subtle.”

Charlie has the decency to stare at her slippers while her face turns red.

“I’d be happy to take you up on that,” Jo says.  “I love pie.”

“Great!” says Kevin, and Charlie’s certain the two of them make a bit more small talk after that, but she’s still too busy being mortified to pay attention.  Soon enough, Kevin’s dragging her back across the street.

“Oh.  Bye!” Charlie says, waving lamely.

Jo winks at her, and Charlie trips on the pavement.

* * *

Charlie doesn’t make it back over until the week after Halloween.  The end of October is particularly busy in their neighborhood—being a historic district means that kids are practically bussed in for trick-or-treating.  Kevin’s not a huge fan of the constant stream of Elsas and Batmen, but they enjoy scaring them, so they and Charlie always go all-out decorating.  The two of them put up homemade cobwebs and make realistic gravestones and set out the smoke machine.  Fake blood splatters the porch, Kevin hides inside the foam mausoleum and jumps out at kids after Charlie gives them candy, and everyone has a great time.

Jo gets into the Halloween spirit on a whole different level, however.  Charlie’s first hint that Jo’s yard was going to outdo theirs was on the twentieth as she stepped out the door to go to work. A guillotine across the road greeted her, Jo holding the string, and an equally-smiling unlit jack-o-lantern beneath the blade.

It smiled up until Jo waved at Charlie, which let the string slip, which let the blade fall, and that was when Charlie wondered if Kevin was right and they were living across the street from a horribly attractive madwoman.  One who built fully-functional guillotines and displayed them in the front yard.

When the guillotine was joined by an “iron” maiden on the 29th, Charlie began questioning her taste in women.

Halloween arrives, and Jo’s trick-or-treaters remain miraculously intact and uninjured; Halloween passes, and everyone cleans up their yards.  As Charlie approaches Jo’s house with pie in hand, she notices that the guillotine and faux-iron maiden have both been moved into Jo’s garage-turned-workshop, ostensibly for the next year, and Charlie hopes it’s a sign that Jo is here to stay.

The muted strains of Led Zeppelin’s _BBC Sessions_ trickle out into the cool, crisp air.  Charlie peeps into the artificially-lit garage, meaning to say hello, but transfixed by Jo, instead.  She’s hard at work on what looks to be a chair back.  Her safety goggles are firmly in place, and she bites her bottom lip in concentration as she leans over the clamped wood, chiseling out a floral design.

Now that Charlie’s up close, she can make out the tattoos that run up and down Jo’s arms—the left is comprised entirely of a red web of ropework; the right has three floral pieces, one blackwork, one watercolor, and the other sketchwork.  It makes Charlie feel even more embarrassed by her tiny illustrative Princess Leia on a D20 procured during a drunken post-convention rave quest she can’t quite remember.

Jo’s hips sway slightly to the music, and she occasionally breaks away from her work for an air guitar solo, or to grab an actual cigarette from a hand-carved ashtray and take a puff or three.  The place smells like Charlie imagines a Victorian smoking room would have, earthy and pungent, yet not completely overwhelming.

“You always sneak up and stare at your neighbors?” Jo finally asks as “Immigrant Song” starts up.  She cranes her head around to look at Charlie, her smile as slow and sweet as her midwestern drawl.

“Only the ones I bring pie to,” Charlie says with a shrug.

“Shit, I totally forgot you promised me pie!”  Jo rips off her goggles and wipes her hands on her jeans.  “I mighta been a little too baked to remember you were bakin’, come to think of it.”

“That’s okay.  That means you forgot how horribly awkward I was, too.”

“Nah.  I definitely remember that.”

“Oh.”

Jo laughs.  “You’re cute when you’re flustered.”

“Oh,” repeats Charlie, a bit more upbeat this time.  “I would promise to be more awkward, but that’s honestly kind of a given.  I took a skill focus and everything.”

“Really gotta up my nerd fu with you,” Jo says, shaking her head.  “So what’ve you got for me?”

“Apple.”

Jo pumps her fist in the air.  “Awesome!  Only person in my family that’s decent at makin’ pie is my brother Dean, and he _hates_ apple.”

“How can anyone hate apple pie?”

“No fuckin’ clue.  He had a bad experience in an orchard or somethin’.  But Dean’s fulla shit so who knows if that’s true.”  Jo jerks her thumb back toward the house.  “You wanna come in and share?”

Charlie hesitates.  Of _course_ she wants to share pie with Jo.  Of _course_ she wants to be invited into Jo’s home.  Of _course_ she wants to spend time with Jo.  Charlie would also like to have at least two days to psyche herself up for the experience and present her best possible self.  Or else an earpiece with Kevin-o de Berga-Tran feeding her suave lines and walking her through the motions of Actually Effective Flirting.

So instead of a firm _yes,_ or even a nonchalant _sure,_ Charlie winds up with, “Is that okay?”

“I should hope so, it bein’ my house and all.”

“Right,” says Charlie with a wince.  “I am so much better at talking to people when there’s a conversation wheel involved.”

Jo grins—she seems happy all the time, though Charlie’s helpful brain adds that Jo could also be stoned all the time—and motions for Charlie to follow her up to the house.  Charlie follows her through the door in back of the garage and into the backyard.  She’d halfway expected to find stalks of marijuana, which is horrible of her but Kevin is, in fact, horrible.  Instead, there are neat rows of orange and yellow witch-hazel interspersed with lamb’s ear and a trio of rose bushes.

“Wouldn’t have taken you for a green thumb,” Charlie comments.

“How come?” asks Jo, turning around and walking backwards.

“I…”  Charlie mulls it over.  “You seem more of a rugged, rough-and-tumble kind of gal.”

“And you’re mostly right,” Jo admits.  “But I like plants.  They ask for nothin’.  Don’t judge.  All they do is give, long as you care enough.”

“Unlike cats.”

“Very unlike cats,” agrees Jo as she continues backing herself up the stairs and in through the back door.  “Another bonus—they don’t shit all over your furniture.”

“Oh my God, _so true._  I thought we’d never get Prophet housetrained.  Kevin and I fought _constantly_ over that cat until they finally gave it to their girlfriend.”

Charlie steps into the blindingly white kitchen.  It’s mostly undecorated—just a pinboard with some photos tacked to it—and the counters are clear.  Jo pulls out a chair at the table for Charlie, so Charlie sits down.

“You like tea?” Jo asks, and Charlie nods.  She puts the kettle on, then pulls a carved wooden box out of the cabinet.  “Here,” she says, setting it in front of Charlie.  “Pick your poison.”

“Ooh, fancy,” Charlie says.  “Actual tea chest.  I feel so proper.  Are we going to have tea on the ceiling with Mary Poppins?”

“Jesus, I hope not,” Jo says with a shudder.  “I’m just always lookin’ for an excuse to make somethin’.”

“You made this?”

“And pretty much everything in the house.  If I didn’t make it, I refurbished it.”

“I am suitably impressed,” says Charlie as she turns the elaborate box around in her hands.  The wood is stained a deep red, and the top is carved with an intricate vine pattern.  Each vine curls in and around into a series of knots that drip down the sides.  Charlie wrinkles her nose as she looks at the sides of the box.

“How does this open?” she asks.  “There’s no latch.”

“It’s a puzzle,” Jo replies with a smirk.  “Better solve it quickly, water’ll be ready soon.”

Charlie inspects the box more carefully, runs her fingers over every nook and cranny.  Soon enough, she finds a few raised leaves in the design, and presses them.  The box clicks, and a tiny panel slides out, revealing a hidden catch.  Charlie triggers the catch, and the top of the box swings open.

“Okay,” she says, plucking a tea bag at random from the box, “that was totally cool.”

“And now _I_ am suitably impressed,” says Jo.  “People usually take a lot longer to catch on.”

“How on earth did you make this?”

“Magician can’t reveal all of her secrets.”

“This is, like, McGonagall-levels of transfiguration,” Charlie comments.  “I didn’t think witchery was an actual job outside of Massachusetts.”

“Actually,” Jo tells her, “the woodworking’s more of a hobby.  I sell a few pieces on Etsy and in boutiques; jigsaw puzzles and wooden toys sell the best.  I get a lotta commissions for custom furniture, too.”

Charlie scoffs.  “That hardly sounds like a hobby.”

Jo considers this.  “I make twice as much from it as I do from work.  You might have a point.”

“So what do you officially do for a living?”

“I write crossword puzzles.”

Charlie stares at her over the top of her glasses.  “You’re not serious.”

“I am dead serious, Hermione,” says Jo.  “But now I have a question for you.”

“What’s that?”

“How do you feel about homemade ice cream with your pie?”

Charlie smiles and says, “That sounds perfect.”

It is, if Jo’s open-mouthed, mid-chew, “Oh my fuckin’ _god,”_ is any indication.

* * *

Jo is in her workshop from dawn until dusk now, gearing up for the Christmas season, playing elf for hundreds of parents.  Charlie tries to remind herself that Jo is too busy to hang out, but she’s still disappointed.  The afternoon of pie and puzzles was one of the best days Charlie’s had in a long time, and she considers her life to be exceedingly happy to begin with.  Jo is as much of a puzzle as any of the ones she creates, and Charlie wants to solve her so bad she can’t see straight.

Not that she’s ever seen straight, but regardless, she pines worse now than ever before.  If it weren’t for the occasional text Charlie exchanges with Jo, she’d probably resort to creeping around in her backyard.

   

_J: You see my puzzle in the paper today?_

_C: I did!  Twelve across is driving me nuts._

_J: Wanna hint?_

_C: Yes, but no._

_J: Atta girl. ;)_

The praise sits warm in Charlie’s belly, and makes the thirty minutes she spends writing and erasing and rewriting probable answers worthwhile.

_J: You figure it out?_

_C: Finally.  Who even uses the word ichor anymore?_

_J: Puzzle makers named Harvelle, obviously._

_C: Obviously._

_J: Knew you could do it.  Watch out for 17 down next Friday.  It’s a doozy._

_C: I never should have made you pie._

   

Sure enough, trying to figure out seventeen down drives Charlie up the wall.

_C: This is worse than guessing the gnome’s name in_ King’s Quest.

_J: What the fuck does that even mean?_

_C: Seventeen down is impossible._

_J: I made it special for you, Hermione._

   

Charlie sighs, curled up on the couch, and glances out her living room window, trying to solve the clue.  Jo is on the porch for once, a joint held in the corner of her mouth, blowing smoke out through her nose.  She’s drilling into the bottom of what looks to be a gourd.

_C: What are you doing?_

_J: Drill, baby, drill._

_C: Can you see Alaska from your doorstep?_

_J: Bet you can._

_C: What the fuck does that even mean?_

_J: I’m making a jack-o-lantern._

_C: You remember that Halloween was last month, right?_

_J: So?_

_C: And that’s not a pumpkin._

   

Jo sets down her phone, looks up at Charlie in her window, and flips her off.

_C: Eloquent._

_J: They were originally carved from turnips.  I’m being historical._

_C: Is seventeen down historical?_

_J: Depends on your point of view. ;)_

   

Charlie gives up.  Jo is just as cryptic as her clues.  She watches Jo a little longer, sees her settle the gourd down onto something that looks a bit like the wooden base of a child’s ring stacking toy.  Jo heads inside with a parting wave once the street lights pop on, and Charlie heads into the kitchen to nuke the leftovers from yesterday’s Chinese.

* * *

When Charlie comes home from work the following evening, Jo is nowhere to be seen, but the large curved gourd she had started carving the day before is now complete and lit.  Jo’s carved the lines and pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in a band around the long orange squash like a ribbon.  It’s elaborate, not simply the curved fitting edges of each puzzle piece, but a picture to boot.

Charlie crosses the street to get a better look at the image, which turns out to be a series of dark and light squares with no discernible pattern.  She readjusts the strap of her messenger bag and pulls her sweater tighter against the chill as she seeks an answer in a jack-o’-lantern.

“You like it?” asks Jo behind her.

“Ask me again when my heart restarts,” Charlie says.  “Don’t tell me you’re a ninja on top of everything else.”

“I’m not, promise.”  She waits a beat, then asks again.  “Do you like my lantern?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.  Still trying to figure out what the picture is.  It’s all pixels so far.”

“Just like you’re still tryin’ to figure out seventeen down?”  Jo elbows Charlie in the ribs, hands shoved into her jeans pockets.

Charlie groans.  “I’m never going to figure that one out.”

“I’d’ve thought that you, of all people, would’ve seen it by now.”

“Hint?”

Jo smiles warmly.  “You don’t really want one.  Just give it another look.”  She gestures back toward her house with her head.  “Wanna come in for dinner?  Dean was supposed to come by and cancelled ‘cause he’s bamboozled some poor idiot into a date.  Got too much food for one person.”

Charlie lets herself fall into Jo’s gravitational pull and follows her up the front steps.

* * *

Jo’s out on the porch again the next day, this time with a squat yellow gourd.  She already has it on a wooden base; it’s scooped out, as well, if the pile of stringy guts and seeds next to her is to be believed.  Charlie watches Jo pick up a marker and begin to draw on its uneven surface.

“I can’t believe you still watch her like you’re on a stakeout,” Kevin says as they turn on the PS4.

“She knows,” Charlie says after sticking her tongue out.  “She doesn’t care.”

“That actually makes it weirder.”

Charlie frowns and turns away from the window.  “Throw me a controller so I can beat your ass at _Awesomenauts.”_

“Unlikely,” Kevin says, tossing one into Charlie’s lap.  “You’re terrible when there aren’t hot keys involved.”

“I might have practiced.”

“They might be giants.”

Charlie kicks them in the shoulder, which leads Kevin to pull her into the floor by her ankle, which ends in an impromptu fight with the couch cushions.

“Hey, Kevin,” Charlie says as she lies on the floor catching her breath.

“What’s up?” answers Kevin as they use her stomach as a footrest.  Charlie’s not sure when they decided she made a fantastic place to keep feet, but they never fail to when the opportunity presents itself.

“Are you any good at puzzles?”

“I’m not bad at them.  Why?”

“I have been hardcore stuck on this crossword clue for, like, three days.”

Kevin beckons her from the floor.  “Lay it on me.”

Charlie uses her foot to knock the newspaper off the arm of the couch, and then tries to retrieve it from the floor with her toes.  She eventually succeeds and grabs it, holding it close to her face since her glasses are on the end table.

“‘One of five for a Beauxbaton’,” she reads to them.  “Three letters.  Last letter is e.”

Kevin _hmms_ thoughtfully.  “So it’s in French, right?”

Charlie thunks the back of her head against the floor.  “Oh my God, I am an idiot.  Of course it’s in French.  But five what?  Five fingers?  Five toes?  Five—”  She gasps and sits up suddenly from the floor.  “Pencil, Kevin, stat!”

“What do I look like, a school supply store?”

“Five _senses,_ it’s five senses.  Scratch the pencil, hand me my cell phone.”

_C: Vue._

_J: Ten points to Gryffindor.  Five more if you know why._

_C: Who died and made you Dumbledore, Jo? Besides Dumbledore._

_J: Too soon. And hey, you’re the one that started playing.  I’m not the hunter here._

   

Charlie lies in bed that night, staring at the ceiling for a solid hour trying to figure out why “sight” is so significant.

* * *

The newest jack-o’-lantern might be the nerdiest thing Charlie’s ever seen, and she’s been to SDCC five times.

“I can’t believe you put Commander William Riker on a pumpkin.”

Jo cough-laughs from the stoop, smoke fanning from her mouth.  “That’s a buttercup squash there, Hermione.  Gotta learn you your veggies.”

“My disbelief still stands.  Beam me up from this fever dream, Scotty.”

“Oh, now you’ve gone and shattered my respect for you,” Jo says before taking another puff.  She continues, “Any Trekkie worth their salt woulda cursed O’Brien, instead,” before exhaling out the side of her mouth.  Jo holds the joint out to Charlie with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m good,” Charlie tells her.  “I can’t handle my pipeweed.  Wind up eating my weight in second breakfasts.”

“More for me, then.”

Charlie waits a beat before asking, “But why Riker?”

“Let me know when you figure out the why to seventeen,” Jo says instead of answering.

* * *

Jo has just started carving a third jack-o’-lantern when Charlie comes home on her lunch break the next afternoon.

“What’s with all the jack-o’-lanterns?” Charlie asks.  “I thought you were super busy working for Boss Elf.”

“Gotta take a break and do my own thing once in awhile.  Might start hatin’ Christmas otherwise.”

“Okay but...why jack-o’-lanterns?”

“Did you know,” Jo starts as she picks up some currently unidentifiable cordless power tool, “that the term ‘jack-o’-lantern’ used to be interchangeable with the phrase ‘will-o’-the-wisp’?”

Charlie sighs.  “This is brand new information,” she says, resigned to not having her question answered.

“They are both used as descriptions for a natural phenomena known as _ignis fatuus,”_ Jo continues as she puts the power tool back down and digs around in her shirt pocket for a lighter instead.

“For a Hogwarts junkie, my Latin is atrocious.”

Jo smiles.  “My parents were big into the supernatural.  I only picked up bits and pieces from old occultist books.”

“So what does it mean?”

“It means ‘foolish fire’.”  She plucks a half-smoked joint out from behind her ear, puts it to her lips, and slowly lights it.

Charlie fiddles with her glasses.  “So you made a squashy effigy of a Starfleet officer because his first name is Will?”

Jo exhales and French inhales.  “I might’ve,” she says after she lets the smoke curl out of her mouth a second time.

“What is it with you and riddles, Jo?” Charlie asks her as she watches Jo repeat the process.

“Dunno,” Jo admits, putting out what’s left of the joint on the stem of the gourd before setting it on the ground.  “Just like puzzles.  And _you_ like solvin’ them,” she says, picking the tool back up and flicking it on.  “It’s a nice arrangement,” she adds over the whirr of the blade.

“You seriously carve pumpkins with power tools?”

“Dremel expects it of me, and I ain’t about to disappoint Our Lady of Rotary.”

* * *

Charlie sits on her porch across the street the next evening.  Jo headed out early in the morning, her pick-up loaded down with crates of wooden toys and puzzles.  She left another lantern on her porch, and lit up all three with battery-powered candles, which means Jo wanted to make sure they were alight even if she wasn’t home.

That, in turn, can only mean one thing: Jo wants someone to see it.  Charlie is starting to suspect that she may be that person, what with Jo’s bemused interest in Charlie solving her puzzles.

And this jack-o’-lantern lineup is starting to look suspiciously like a puzzle.

Charlie pulls out her phone.

_C: Seventeen down.  You want me to see.  And the first lantern is a puzzle of a crossword._

_J: Smart cookie._

   

The same pleased blush as before colors Charlie’s cheeks.  She wants to listen to Jo’s praise in person, wants to hear that soft sound of wonder that makes her feel so good about herself, wants to please her.

Charlie pulls up an empty doc on her phone and starts listing facts about the lanterns across the road.

   

  1. puzzle of crossword

  2. Commander Riker (why)

  3. sheep jumping over a fence (more why)




   

It makes even less sense when she spells it out.  The clues are as elusive as the puzzlemaker herself.  Charlie hugs her knees to her chest and decides she’ll simply have to wait for another lantern.

* * *

Charlie spends most of Saturday LARPing in the state park two hours away.  She’s always looked forward to the regional meet-ups before, but today, her mind is elsewhere.  The Queen of Moons would give anything to sit in her porch swing instead of on her throne, waiting for a new jack-o’-lantern instead of overseeing a tournament.

Her phone buzzes in her pocket during the last round, and Charlie practically runs into her tent after she’s crowned the victor to check it.  She frowns when she sees that it’s from Kevin until she opens it and sees that they’ve sent her a photo of Jo’s porch.

The fourth pumpkin—well, gourd, but whatever—is a hyper-realistic image of a queen bee in a honeycomb.

Charlie adds the new information to her list, readjusts her robe, and heads back into medieval times.

* * *

Jo is hard at work on another lantern—a dark green kabocha, because Charlie has been learning her squashes diligently—when Charlie pulls into the driveway Sunday morning.  She’s tired and hungover and wants nothing more than to shower and crawl into bed, so she waves at Jo weakly before heading inside, leaving her bags and costume pieces in the car.

Charlie throws her keys into the basket on the wall and nudges the front door closed with her hip.  She trudges up the stairs, dragging her sore, blistered feet as she goes. She’s barely in the shower before she hears Admiral Ackbar trilling from her phone where it sits on the tank of the toilet.

_J: Good morning, starshine._

_J: Everything okay?_

_C: I was too merry and the mead was too much._

_J: Come over and let me make you breakfast._

_C: I don’t even want to think about food right now._

_J: Omelets are great for hangovers, Hermione._

_J: Let me take care of you. Next time I use my vape and visit Venus, I’ll let you return the favor._

_C: Ugh. Why do you always roll twenties? Over in five._

   

Charlie doesn’t even bother drying her hair, just grabs two hair ties to take with her, slipping them onto her wrist.  She yanks on a freebie shirt from Random Acts and a pair of polka-dotted pajama pants that she bought from Victoria’s Secret for the tiny pink dog.  Deteriorating shower shoes will just have to do—Charlie’s not putting anything with sides and a back on her feet right now.

She glances at herself in the full-length mirror.   _Meliority up top, sorority in the middle, inferiority on the bottom.  Grammar garb gradient._

Charlie rubs her eyes with the heels of her hands.  Hangovers wreak havoc on her inner English major, the one language she actually hates writing in.   _Why couldn’t I drink myself into ASCII overload?_

Admiral Ackbar reminds her what a crush is once more.

_J: You’re late. So rude._

_C: I can’t find my time-turner._

_J: A likely story._

   

The trip down the stairs goes much faster than the trip up.  She fumbles around in the basket for her keys, but keeps coming up with bits and pieces Kevin’s left in there after coming home from the symphony.  After she pulls out four cakes of rosin and gets her fingers covered in bits of fingerboard tape, Charlie gives up and simply swings the basket upside down.  Her keys clatter into the floor, sandwiched between two discarded chinrest pads.

Kevin weakly grumbles something from the kitchen, most likely a string of curses and promises of retribution on Charlie’s descendants.  From the number of times Charlie’s dumped the basket, her line’s going to end up unluckier than the Starks.

_J: Still coming?_

_C: You’re so impatient. And yes, just lost my keys in the accoutrement creel._

_J: Pshaw. You don’t sew._

_C: No, but I can make a bitchin’ set of chainmail._

_J: Noted. You here yet?_

_C: Stepping out now._

   

Charlie absolutely does not skip down the steps and across the street, because if she did, she would feel even more nauseous than she does already.  At least, she doesn’t mean to skip.  By the time she’s climbed up the steps of Machu Picchu, dodged the gourd guardians, and let herself into Jo’s temple, Charlie feels positively green.

“You look like shit,” Jo notes as she flips bacon.

“I feel so much worse,” says Charlie as she slides into her usual chair at the table.  “Mastodon levels of poop.  I’ll be dissected by an archaeologist some day and they’ll use me to date something.”

Jo chuckles.  “And Kevin thinks _I’m_ the weirdly morbid one.”

“No,” corrects Charlie, “Kev thinks you’re a serial killer.”

Jo taps her chin thoughtfully.  “I can murder a box of Pops single-handedly.  They might have a point.”

Charlie laughs and immediately regrets it.  She settles instead for splitting her wet hair into two neat braids, then lying her head on her pillowed arms and watching Jo finish up breakfast.  Watching Jo do anything with her hands is the best meditation Charlie’s ever found.  Jo’s fingers are skilled, her grip strong, her touch sure—

—and Charlie immediately halts that train of thought before she can wonder what art Jo would make out of her.

Before long, Jo’s bringing two plates over to the table, holding one and balancing the other on her forearm, a glass of water in her other hand.

“You were a server at some point?” asks Charlie.

“Yeah, Mom opened and runs a greasy spoon in Nebraska of all goddamn forsaken places,” Jo tells her as she sets the water in front of Charlie.  “Drink that.”

Charlie dutifully sips at it, blinking up to meet Jo’s eyes and realizing she has to squint because her glasses are still on her bathroom counter across the street.

“Please tell me what you’re feeding me,” Charlie says, “I don’t think I can squint hard enough to figure it out on my own.”

“Spinach and mushroom omelet, entirely too much bacon, and hashbrowns.  Toast, too, if you want it.”

“Toast would be fabulous.”

They sit and eat mostly in silence, apart from Charlie’s happy noises at the food.

“I didn’t even know I was hungry,” she comments halfway through her omelet.  “I hardly ever eat breakfast, anyway.”

“You oughta change that,” says Jo, authoritative.

“I’m practically the walking dead when I wake up,” Charlie explains.  “Carl would show up to mercy kill me if I approached the stove.”

“Guess you’ll just have to pop in over here more often then.”

“Yeah,” Charlie agrees with her first smile of the day.  “I guess so.”

* * *

The fifth jack-o’-lantern doesn’t show up until Monday evening.  It hasn’t even made it to the porch before Charlie finds it, having stopped over with a plate of brownies to thank Jo for Sunday’s hangover cure.  Jo answers the door, and there it sits in the floor next to the couch.

Charlie makes to sneak a look at it, but misses it altogether when she sees Jo’s latest project looming monstrously in the living room.

“What in Andraste’s green Thedas is that, Jo?”

Jo blanches for half of a second before pulling her face back together.  “Custom furniture project,” she replies, as if that answers the question.

Charlie pushes the plate into Jo’s arms and elbows her way inside and over to the giant, looming piece.  “Okay, but is this custom furniture what I think it is?”

“Probably,” says Jo.  “Why, what do you think it is?”

“A St. Andrew’s Cross,” Charlie says in complete disbelief.  “You’re building a St. Andrew’s Cross in your living room.”

“Technically,” Jo begins, “it started in the workshop.  Table saw hardly brings the room together.”

Charlie pokes it to make sure it’s real and she isn’t hallucinating the surprise bondage furniture in her neighbor-slash-friend-slash-increasingly confounding crush’s house.  “Have you seen _Firefly?”_

“I’m offended that you’re askin’.”

“Because I have never been more Simon Tam in Canton than I am at this very moment,” Charlie deadpans.

“Oh, you think _that’s_ somethin’,” Jo says, sidling by Charlie and setting the plate of brownies down on the arm of the sofa before stepping over to the cross.  She pulls a few pins and twists a wingnut or two and Charlie watches dumbfounded as it collapses in on itself.  Jo folds it in like she’s closing an umbrella from the top down, then flips the whole thing over and into a fitted square base.  She secures it to a pole on the inside, then sets a matching cap over the top like a lid.  “Ta-da!” she exclaims, arms flourished.

“This brings whole new meaning to Autobots rolling out,” is the best Charlie can manage.

“It’s so unsuspecting,” Jo says, picking up the forgotten jack-o’-lantern and setting it atop the pedestal.  “You could have your grandma over for tea and she could sit right next to it and never know a goddamn thing.”

“That may be the most terrifying mental image I’ve ever had.”

Jo waits a beat before saying, “Coulda been your grandma using it.”

“...You’re awful.”

“And _you_ knew what it was,” Jo counters with a smirk and crossed arms.  “I’d like to talk about that, Hermione.  What Room of Requirement have you been sneakin’ into?”

Charlie couldn’t blush any harder if she tried.  “I read fanfic,” she mumbles.  “That’s like the gateway drug to new and interesting kinky fun times.  There’s a lot of enthusiasts in the gaming community, as well.”  She stops the whirring gears in her brain long enough to ask, “What about you?”

“Me?  Well, I have interestin’ customers, for one.  And there’s a greater demand for... _complicated_ furniture than there is supply.  Very lucrative, not to mention fun, not to mention challenging.”

“What, so you saw a hole and filled it?” Charlie asks with a snicker.

“And here I thought I was the awful one.”

“I am immune from awfulness,” Charlie asserts, “because I brought you goodies.”

“Oh yeah!”  Jo plucks the brownies from the sofa and walks off toward the kitchen.  “Brownie a la mode time, because I got shit-ripped last night and made three gallons of raspberry pistachio frozen yogurt.”

“How well does that pair with brownies?”

“Only one way to find out,” Jo replies, poking her head around the wall.  “Oh, and Charlie?”

“Yeah?”

“I make puzzles.  I like to break somethin’ whole into pieces and then build it back up again.”  Jo grins wickedly.  “To further answer your question.”

“A-a-about brownies?” asks Charlie, though she knows that it isn’t.

“Of course,” says Jo impishly.  “Why, what did you think I meant?”

Charlie gulps.  “Um.”

“Flustered.  Cute.”  Jo chuckles.  “C’mon, these calories ain’t gonna eat themselves.”

It doesn’t occur to Charlie that she never actually saw what was carved into the gourd until she’s home, the back of her head hitting the door and eyes closed, her stomach full of sweets and mind full of irrepressible fantasies.

Charlie now knows full well that she’s playing with foolish fire, a simmering yearning in her heart and belly, and she wants nothing more than to stray too close and burn.

* * *

“So let me get this straight,” Kevin says, swinging their legs up and onto the table at breakfast.

“It’s hardly straight,” Charlie corrects around a mouthful of Lucky Charms.

“You take brownies over to Creepy Girl as a way of saying thank you for her cure-all breakfast—speaking of which, since when have you eaten breakfast?”

“Since she said I should on Sunday.”

“Oh my God, you are completely hopeless.”  Kevin balances the folded paper towel holding their untoasted bagel on their knees.  “Anyway,” they continue as they open the cream cheese, “you take over brownies, and there’s _a dungeon in her living room?”_

Charlie swallows.  “Not a whole dungeon.  Just, y’know.  Bits of one.”

“That collapses for hiding in plain sight.”

“Yeah.”

“So what you’re saying is Creepy Girl lives in a BDSM TARDIS.”

“Dude, this is a lucrative business venture, okay?” Charlie says, exasperated.  “Those things sell for like seven-hundred, eight-hundred bucks a piece.  More if they’re custom, which this one is, and the scrollwork is so pretty, Kev, so _delicate,_ and—”

“—And I’m sure the fine craftsmanship is all that you were thinking about when you looked at it, Charlie.”  Kevin levels her a pointed, knowing look.

“I plead innocence,” she says, averting her eyes into her cereal bowl, which has suddenly become horribly interesting.

_“Charlie.”_

“Or at least the fifth.”

Kevin rolls their eyes.  “Also, since we’re talking about dubious home decorating, what’s with all the pumpkins on her porch?”

“Gourds,” Charlie automatically corrects.  “And it’s a puzzle.”

“Why, exactly?”

“I don’t know,” groans Charlie.  “That’s part of the problem.  Puzzles within puzzles within more fucking puzzles.  Sometimes literally.”

“So what, each pumpkin is a clue?”

“Yes.  Kind of.  I think maybe.”

Kevin sticks a quarter of their bagel into the tub of cream cheese like they’re claiming the new world.  “If you think I’m aiding and abetting, think again.”

“Technically, you already did, considering you’re the one who drug me across the street.”

“True, but still, if you’re going to hook up with a potential maniac, I want plausible deniability when Sergeant Angel shows up.”

“But if you help me figure this out,” Charlie begins, batting her eyelashes, “then I’ll stop pining all over you.”  She averts her eyes before adding, “Probably.”

Kevin narrows their eyes and leans over the table toward Charlie.  “You better not give _Law & Order: SVU_ any ideas.”

“I swear,” Charlie says, crossing her heart.  “The minute I smell Richard Belzer coming, I’m out.”

“So what do we know so far?”

Charlie unlocks her phone and swipes around until she finds her clue list before handing it over to Kevin.

   

  1. puzzle of crossword

  2. Commander Riker (why)

  3. sheep jumping over a fence (more why)

  4. you can call me queen bee (why why why)

  5. ???

  6. profit




   

“Did you seriously turn your notes into an internet meme?”

“Meme happens,” Charlie tells them with a shrug.

“Whatever.  Walk me through this.”

Charlie picks up her chair and scoots herself around to the other side of the table.  “I think the first lantern is the decoder,” she says.  “I don’t know what it’s decoding exactly, but I think that’s the key to figuring out what the other lanterns signify.”

“So lantern one,” Kevin states, “is a piece of a puzzle that’s picture is a crossword.”

“Right.”

Kevin chews thoughtfully on the end of their bagel, not bothering to remove it from the tub.  They drum their fingers on the side of the table before deciding, “What if each jack-o’-lantern was a word?”

“What, like some…”  Charlie makes a series of progressively odder faces as she processes.  “Like an acrostic?  Sort of?”

“Sort of.  Think bigger picture.  Disambiguate.”

“In other words, channel Wikipedia,” sighs Charlie.  “I mean, what am I even looking for?  Symbols that stand in for words?  Symbols that stand in for words but are synonyms?  Or homonyms?  Neither?  Both?”

“Both is good.”

Charlie puts her elbows on the table and plants her forehead into her palms.  “I’m not even supposed to be here today.”

“Well, Dante,” Kevin says, “you’re here, you’re queer, and you’ve got a puzzle to plod through.”

Which is exactly what Charlie spends her character regen time doing that evening.  She’s more than fairly certain of the mean of the first of the clue jack-o’-lantern’s; the only thing shared between Commander Riker and a will-o’-the-wisp is “will”.  Unfortunately, the rest of her notes trend further and further downhill as she tries desperately to parse meaning.

   

  * sheep jumping over a fence

    * sheep

      * no horns = not a ram

      * ewe >> sounds like you

      * lamb

    * jump

      * hop

      * leap

      * skip

    * fence

      * wall

      * barrier

      * selling stolen stuff?

  * queen bee in honeycomb

    * bee

      * be

      * bea (arthur?)

      * because? betwixt? between? be___?

    * queen

      * royal

      * chess

      * of moons?

      * latifah?

    * honeycomb

      * honey = nectar >> sweet

      * comb = brush >> hair

      * honey + comb = icky cereal

  * ???




   

Charlie puts down her phone as her team yells at the boss.  She cranes her head to look out her bedroom window as she hits hot keys and casts group heals and buffs by rote memory.  The last time she’d risked a glance, Jo still hadn’t put out the most recent lantern.

Now, however, there are two.

“Hey, guys?” she says hesitantly into her microphone.  “I have to go AFK very suddenly and without good explanation.”

“Codex, are you serious?”  Charlie winces at the shouting in her ear.  “As guild leader, I demand at the very least a _passable_ explanation.”

“It’s a, um...gourdmergency.”

“Produce should never be cause for alarm!”

“No, no, Vork, wait,” says another, “this is the hot piece across the street playing games with your heart, right?  The one Tink and Clara wouldn’t shut up about.”

“Ugh,” Charlie sighs.  “Of course they blabbed.”

The voice identified as Vork _hmms_ in consideration.  “How are we to be sure that this is a worthy sidequest?”

“She just set out a _Minecraft_ -themed jack-o’-lantern.”

“Go forth, brave Codex!” he calls over the din of electronic battle.  “You have my blessing.”

“Yeah, and if you tap that, pics or it didn’t happen.”

Charlie wrinkles her nose.  “Ew, Bladezz.  I am not depositing her into your spank bank.  Very no.”

A third voice half-heartedly laughs.  “Squash’d.”  He quickly adds, “I am a supportive friend, best friend!”

“Uh, sure, Zaboo,” says Charlie.  “Thanks?”

She logs off quickly, grabs her phone, and all but runs downstairs.  Charlie skids to a stop in front of the door, quickly pulling her toboggan off of the hat stand.

“I see the creeper left a Creeper for the creeper,” Kevin observes from the living room, eyes remaining glued to _Mass Effect 3._

“She’s not a creeper,” Charlie tells them.  “Neither am I.  And—”  She peeps quickly through the window in the door.  “—neither is the pumpkin.”

“What is it, then?”

“Steve with a pickaxe.”

“Bet you don’t know what the last one is.”

Charlie huffs.  “Bet I—actually, wait, what is that?  Unfinished plaid?”

Kevin grimaces.  “It’s a staff with a bold double bar line.”

“I’m going to guess that’s a musical...wossname,” she guesses as she winds a matching skinny scarf around her neck.  “A sign-thingy.  It means…”  Charlie pauses while she shrugs on her peacoat.  “A whole lot of something to the symphonically-inclined, I’m sure.”

“It means the end of the piece, dumbass.”

She scowls as she finishes fastening the toggles on her coat.  “I hope a Banshee eats you.”

“I’m playing a Vanguard,” says Kevin.  “Not a chance.”

“Human?”

“Yup.”

“Fine then.  I hope your team yells at you for kill-stealing.”

“It’s kill- _sharing!”_ Kevin shouts as Charlie shuts the front door behind her.  The night sky has just started spitting snow, and her hands are already shaking.  Charlie’s not sure whether it’s from the cold or the knowledge that every piece of the puzzle now lies in front of her—or rather, glows warmly at her from across the street.  She quickly adds the final clues and whatever interpretations she can come up with into her notes.

   

  * ~~???~~ Steve from _Minecraft_

    * Steve

      * Reeves?

      * Jobs?

      * McQueen?

    * minecraft

      * mining

      * crafting

  * unfinished musical plaid = END!




   

Charlie plops down on the steps to think.  Now that she’s reached the endgame, it occurs to her that it would have been easier to fight the final boss on paper rather than on her touchscreen.  She stares at her orderly bulleted list and tries to figure out how it all fits together, combining words into nonsensical phrases so fast she gets dizzy.

She stops and takes a deep breath.   _I’m probably overthinking this.  Come on, Charlie—what would Hermione do?  Or Buffy?  Or maybe Sherlock?  Scholar’s Bowl dream team?_

“First word is will,” she mumbles to herself.  “Okay.  Best choice for the third word is probably ‘be’.  Will blank be blank.”  Charlie puts her phone on her feet and props her elbows on her knees, chin in hands, looking down at the screen.  “Will lamb b—no, will ewe be…  Oh!  Will you be…”  She bites her lip.   _Will I be what?  Will I be Steve?  Will I be axe?  Will I be—_

Charlie’s mouth drops open.  She blinks several times, tries to make the solution be anything but what it is.  But there’s just no other way to read it.  Jo’s asked her a question, and one so simple that Charlie could palm her own face.  No need for Kevin to assist.

_Will you be mine?_

She doesn’t run across the street, because running doesn’t involve taking a few flurried, tip-toed steps forward, halting suddenly in one’s tracks, doubting one’s self, and then walking forward as if treading through landmines.  Charlie has no idea what this dance is called, because flirting has always been a solo piece she could never quite start on the correct foot, and dating was always too complicated a tango to finish.  However she moves, it gets her across the street, and up Jo’s stairs, and onto Jo’s porch, where the light is on but the lanterns are brighter, but none of them as bright as Charlie feels.

It takes Jo approximately four ice ages to answer the door.  She stands there barefoot, fresh out of the shower, blond hair dark and wet and dripping down her bare arms.  Jo lets the door swing open the rest of the way and shoves her hands into the pockets of her loose plaid pajama bottoms, slung low on her hips.  She rocks back slightly on her heels and licks at her lips.

It’s the first time Charlie’s ever seen her look nervous.

“You figure it out?” Jo finally asks, one corner of her mouth upturned in hope.

Charlie means to say, “Yes, and also yes,” but she’s so preoccupied with not bouncing up and down like a too-excited puppy that what comes out is, “You know it isn’t Valentine’s Day yet, right?”

Jo’s face falls.  “Too formal?  Too cheesy?  Too soon?”

 _Ugh.  Way to roll a one, Charlie._  “That’s not—”

“Because ‘Do you want a practical demonstration of how my furniture works?’ was A: way too complicated and B: pretty goddamn presumptuous and C: not entirely accurate.”

Charlie gapes a bit.  “Yes, please, I would like to help you quality-test every custom piece that comes out of your house,” is what the suave bard with the enviable Charisma score says in her head.  Charlie smartly says, “Oh,” and hopes she doesn’t sound disappointed or, worse, uninterested.

“Shit,” Jo groans, “I mean I _do_ want to make a mess outta you, but that’s not all I wanna do.”

“Oh?”   _That’s it, I’m rerolling this character._

“I don’t—”  Jo sighs.  “I don’t _do_ this normally.  I mean ask someone out.  Date.  Usually I go out to a club, pick someone up, boss ‘em around a little while, y’know, have some fun.  It’s over by morning, and that’s always been fine for me, but…”

She pulls her hands out of her pockets and rubs her face before continuing.  “Charlie, I ain’t ever liked someone else the way I like you.  You make me feel…  Foolish, I guess.  In a good way.  So yeah,” Jo says, propping her elbow against the door frame and her head against her fist.  “I want you, but I want _all_ of you.  I wanna make you mine, and not just for one night.”

“Oh.”

They stand there staring at each other for a further four uncomfortable ice ages.

“Well fuck, Hermione,” Jo finally starts, breaking the silence with a fake smile, “don’t leave me out here on the line to dry.  Send me a smoke signal or—”

And, since Charlie’s vocal cords aren’t getting the message, she gives one to Jo the only way she can think to do it.

Charlie grabs the sides of Jo’s face and pulls their lips together.  It’s more of a mash than a kiss, all needy and desperate and nothing at all like Charlie imagined their first kiss, should it happen, might be.  She’d pictured them standing in Jo’s backyard surrounded by her secret garden, sun glowing rosy in the sky as it begins to set, licking the taste of apple pie and homemade vanilla ice cream out of Jo’s mouth.  Her hands would slide beneath Jo’s flannel shirt and settle on her back, and it would be smooth and cool in all the ways Charlie never is.

Instead, Charlie’s lips are dry and chapped from the cold night air, and Jo tastes vaguely of Listerine, and she isn’t responding at all.

Horrified and embarrassed and more than a little confused, Charlie abruptly ends the kiss and lets her hands fall from Jo’s face.  Jo apparently hasn’t stopped staring at her, and now Charlie feels foolish.  She opens her mouth to apologize, and prepares her feet to run blindly backward off the porch, but Jo’s too quick for her.

“That was an awful first kiss,” Jo says.  “Feel like I should apologize for that.”

“Why?” Charlie slowly asks.

Jo’s face breaks into a devilish grin.  “Because I’m used to leading.”  She reaches out for Charlie’s scarf, reels her in by it and over the threshold and into her mouth.

And this was the kiss Charlie expected.  Minus the Listerine and the winter bundling and the squeak of surprise that pushes itself out of her lungs, of course, but _this is it._  Jo kisses like the world depends on it, possessive and greedy and conquering.  Her mouth is soft and warm, though, and her fingers wind themselves into Charlie’s hair, cradle the back of her head like she’s something delicate and precious, like she could fall into pieces at any second with no warning whatsoever.

Jo dials back the ferocity slightly, nibbles at Charlie’s bottom lip, slides her tongue in to trace along hers, and Charlie’s lost in it, forgetting to breathe, let alone thinking about where she should put her hands.  Charlie feels better about gasping for air when Jo breaks the kiss because she is, too.  She lets her forehead fall forward to rest against Jo’s, both of them trying to catch their breath.

“There,” Jo says with a laugh, trailing the back of one hand blindly down the side of Charlie’s face.  “That was better.”

“Definitely,” agrees Charlie.

“Guess I should’ve done that in my kitchen weeks ago.”

“Yeah,” Charlie answers with a wide smile.  “I guess so.”

**Author's Note:**

> The "[Gaming's Feminist Illuminati](http://gamingsfeministilluminati.com/)" shirt is real. So is the [collapsing St. Andrew's Cross](https://www.etsy.com/listing/120331275/sex-furniture-bondagedungeon-standrews). Some stuff is simply too awesome to make up.
> 
> Quick reminder that you should never smoke pot and use power tools. Friends don't let friends Dremel stoned. (Speaking of Dremel, a big thank you to [viscouslover](http://archiveofourown.org/users/viscouslover/pseuds/viscouslover/works) for alerting me to the existence of the [7000-PK Pumpkin Carving Kit](http://www.dremel.com/en-ca/Tools/Pages/ToolDetail.aspx?pid=7000-PK#.VkDGn7erTDe).)
> 
> Check out _[The Guild](http://watchtheguild.com/)_ to watch the further adventures of Charlie's gaming group (and her alternate universe alter ego, Codex). Quality programming for quality nerds.
> 
> ***
> 
> This is also [crossposted to Tumblr](http://shiphitsthefan.tumblr.com/post/132876011829/foolish-fire); if you enjoyed the fic, I would greatly appreciate your reblogging it.
> 
> You can find me on my [Tumblr](http://shiphitsthefan.tumblr.com/). I also chirp occasionally witty things on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/shiphitsthefan).
> 
> Kudos and comments validate my existence. <3


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